Health Benifits

I have been reading allot on the discussions of health care reform. I am dismayed to see that the many of the Dem's in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee are upset that the republicans, some members of their own party and (surprisingly) Obama are actually against the concept of taxing employer provided health care benefits as income.

Some how senators like Montana's Max Baucus actually believe that increasing the tax load on employers and working class Americans is the way to pay for health care reform. Apparently he can't see the plain fact that the cost of those taxes along with the ever increasing portion we as working class Americans pay out of our pockets to have access to those company insurance plans means an _increase_ in the number of Americans who will not be able to afford health care. The end result will be that as fewer and fewer employees sign up for group health plans, employers will have to dump their program altogether as it will cost them to much to maintain for a small group.

This of course means more flooded ER's and scant few public clinics that are already over burdened by the un-employed and un-insured, will be further over-run by the _under insured_ who had to give up their benefits in order to buy food and pay the rent.

Ironically it is insurance that drives our health care prices through the roof. In our litigious society doctors have to carry and maintain an obscene level of malpractice insurance, as do suppliers of medical equipment. This cost is of course, as in any business, passed on to the consumer/patient.

In Texas several years ago they passed a law limiting the amount of medical malpractice settlements. Now I know that many of my fellow Texans did not see the over all benefit of this law, nor will most ever be bruised by having their losses limited by it. I however got to see the up side. The cost of my daughters power wheel chair after the law was passed was 35% less in cost than the comparable chair it was replacing due too age, wear and tear. We asked our equipment provider about this and they confirmed that the cost reduction directly reflected the reduction in their insurance cost. It really does work

There are doctors willing to work for less money and in clinics and offices that charge on a sliding scale. They simply can't afford to provide that service to their community as they would be bankrupted by the insurance and or frivolous law suits. So how about instead of forcing employers to tax their employees into doing without coverage, we limit malpractice suits and find a way to under-write a form of federal insurance for doctors who are willing to work in public offices. heck Medical school is expensive. instead of having brilliant young minds starve themselves to pay back student loans, how about we set up a program by which for every year of medical school the tax payers pay for these young doctors spend a year practicing in an office that offers subsidized services on a sliding scale?

America does need to work together to solve our ever increasing cost of health care, but taxing those who work to provide quality services to their families is not the way to do it.